SACRAMENTO (KCBS)— With less than a week to go from its Monday deadline, Covered California has blown past its enrollment goals for the new health insurance program, according to officials.

More than one million Californians have signed up, and 2 million more who inquired, found they’re eligible for Medi-Cal and have enrolled in that, said Assemblyman Dr. Richard Pan who chairs the state’s Assembly Health Committee.

Pan spoke Tuesday at a news conference at the state Capitol and said state officials are now pulling out all the stops to sign up even more people. “We need to keep going because the people really need help,” he said.

The organizers running California’s health exchange provided almost daily updates and held frequent enrollment events to ensure the maximum number of uninsured Californians sign up under the federally mandated Affordable Care Act before the March 31st.

“Here in California we’ve been very successful because we’ve been focused on making this work. I think that’s not quite true across the country because politics and other types of things,” Pan said. “We’ve been focused on making this work— that’s why we’ve already surpassed our enrollment goals for this year.”

Covered California will have extended phone service hours from now until next Monday and there will be enrollment fairs at various locations around the Bay Area over the weekend.

Doug Sovern began his career as a copy boy at the New York Times, and then moved to California to play in a rock band. After hundreds of gigs, an indie album and a whole lot of session work failed to make him a rock star, Doug returned to journalis...